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Europe and Africa look to build a New World Order
December 9, 2007
By Ben Nimmo

Lisbon (dpa) - A century after European states carved Africa into a series of colonies, Europe is looking to create a New World Order - in alliance with Africa.

“Imagine if we showed that with 1.5 billion people and 80 countries - almost half the UN membership! - we can make a real impact, both regionally and as global partners,” European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told the summit of the European and African Unions in Lisbon on Saturday.

The two continents should create a “genuine partnership of solidarity and mutual respect which defends the priorities of Africa and its specific interests” in global issues, Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak told the 26 European and 53 African leaders.

The EU-AU summit - the first in seven years and only the second in history - has been hailed by both sides as a chance to launch a “new relationship” between the continents.

And one key aim of that relationship, according to the agreement jointly drawn up by representatives of the two organizations, is to develop “common responses to global challenges” in international forums - including the United Nations.

“The EU and AU together represent 80 countries. Eighty votes at the UN is a very big power bloc, so there’s no doubt that more comprehensive cooperation could be mutually beneficial,” John Kotsopoulos, an Africa expert at the Brussels-based European Policy Centre, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The two decades since the end of the Cold War have been marked by the emergence of powerful global players such as China, India, Brazil and Russia - states with huge populations, growing financial reserves and immensely powerful corporations.

Africa is already the scene of their rivalry, as the new great powers compete for dwindling energy supplies and raw materials.

“Africa is becoming the new ‘grand chessboard’ on which the world’s great powers manoeuvre. China, the US, Australia, India and Malaysia are more and more pushing elbow to elbow to take control of mineral, oil and gas deposits in Africa,” EU Aid and Development Commissioner Louis Michel warned ahead of the summit.

And while some African leaders fear that their continent risks becoming the renewed battleground of the world’s rising powers, their European counterparts worry that those same powers could sideline Europe on major international issues.

“In terms of its broader foreign policy, Europe does need more allies, and certainly Africa represents the best opportunity,” Kotsopoulos said.

Indeed, in many ways a united Africa would be the logical partner for a united Europe in global debates: Europe is Africa’s largest trade partner and aid donor, as EU officials regularly point out.

And the two continents have something else in common: neither is home to any of the half-dozen mega-states which look set to dominate the coming century, such as China, India, the US, Russia and Brazil.

The largest state in Africa, Nigeria, with an estimated population of some 120 million, is dwarfed by states such as the US (301 million), let alone China and India, with over a billion each.

And even the largest economy in Europe, Germany, looks likely to slip down the global rankings in the next decade as China and India continue to expand at white-hot pace.

Given the gradual eclipse of European power, and the resurgence of great-power games in Africa, it is no wonder that the idea of a strategic alliance between the EU and AU has won its supporters on both continents.

But one immense problem remains. Both the EU and the AU are clubs of sovereign states, fiercely jealous of their prerogatives and quick to resent what they see as interference from supra-national bureaucracies.

The organizations are often deadlocked over key issues, as member states block joint decisions to protect their national interests.

And that being the case, no matter how much the institutions in Brussels and Addis Ababa might wish to carve out a place in a new world order, their members look more likely to prefer doing deals with the great powers of the old one.

“It’s far easier to deal with a China that can mobilize massive capital with few conditions, than with a bloc of 27 countries that’s still a patchwork of members,” Kotsopoulos pointed out.

“The Chinese don’t talk for a long time, they just do it, and very fast, very fast, very fast,” Senegalese President Maitre Abdoulaye Wave added.
http://tinyurl.com/24s48v

Al-Qaeda urged to attack Knights of Malta in Cairo
December 7, 2007



Rome, 6 Dec. (AKI) - A message posted on Islamist websites close to al-Qaeda is urging jihadists to carry out a terrorist attack on the embassy of the Roman Catholic Order of Malta in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.

“Do not stint on your attacks, Egyptians, either with car or truck bombs,” reads the message posted on Thursday. It is accompanied by photos of the embassy building (photo) and entrance.

“These are photos of the Order of Malta embassy in Cairo. I ask Allah to have it closed down or blown up, along with those inside it, who hate Islam and Muslims,” the Internet message continued.

The message urging the jihadi attack on the Order of Malta - nowadays a charitable organisation - follows the publication of an editorial in the United Arab Emirates daily al-Bayan, by Jordanian MP Jamal Muhammad Abidat entitled ‘The Knights of Malta - more than a conspiracy’.

In the article, Abidat gives a Muslim interpretation of the Order’s history, describing the role played by the Knights of Malta during the Crusades. Abidat says the Order is playing the same role in the Middle East today, citing the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The painful saga of modern Arab-Muslim history evokes the battles fought in Crusades of the 11th centry - when the Knights of Malta began their operations as a Christian militia whose mission it was to defend the land conquered by the Crusaders.”

“These memories return violently to mind with the discovery of links between the so-called security firms in Iraq such as Blackwater have historic links with the Order of Malta,” Abidat argued.

He was referring to private security contractors operating in Iraq such as Blackwater Worldwide whose guards on 16 September killed 17 Iraqi civilians in a Baghdad square.

Blackwater said its guards were protecting diplomats under attack before they opened fire, but Iraqi investigators concluded the shooting was unprovoked.

Abidat accuses the Order of Malta of being run by men who are close to US president George W. Bush and neo-conservative political circles, taking a cue from a report transmitted on the Arab network, Al-Jazeera, on 24 April 2007.

He also refers to American investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill who has written about the rise of mercenaries in recent years and is a vocal critic of private military contractors. Scahill recently published a book entitled, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.

“You cannot exaggerate it. The Order of Malta is a hidden government or the most mysterious government in the world,” said Abidat in the editorial.

“We accept the definition given by one of the officials at their Cairo embassy, that defined it as ‘ghost that lives nearby’.”

The Rome-based Order of Malta, whose full name is the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, is also known as The Knights of Malta.

It began as an organisation founded in Jerusalem in 1080, to care for poor and sick pilgrims to the Holy Land.

The Order of Malta retains its claim of sovereignty under international law and has been granted permanent observer status at the United Nations. It issues its own passports, stamps and coins and has formal diplomatic relations with 99 states.

Related
Malta ‘is Blackwater’s operational base’
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3djpvu

Blackwater: Knights of Malta in Iraq
http://tinyurl.com/yr2atc

The picture that proves ‘torture flights’ are STILL landing in the UK (and Malta)
http://tinyurl.com/ypgjpx

Ex-Pentagon IG Joseph Schmitz At Prince/Blackwater
http://tinyurl.com/ynjkrj
Joseph Schmitz is active in the Washington Lawyers’ Chapter of the right-wing Federalist Society, the same group with which the new Chief Justice John G. Roberts was affiliated. Schmitz is also a member of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Schmitz was accused of covering up several investigations into fraud, waste and abuse within the Rumsfeld Pentagon.

The Order of Knights Hospitalers, St. John, Rhodes and Malta
http://tinyurl.com/27dxz5

The New World Order Agenda Spelled Out
http://tinyurl.com/27dxz5

Knights of Malta
http://tinyurl.com/2b66db
The Sovereign Military Order of Malta, also known as the original Sovereign Military Order of St. John of Jerusalem, is a closed fraternity of the Roman Catholic Church. Its initiated members must be Catholic and have served in the military. They participate in secret ceremonies and feudal ritual dress, and embrace a strong class/caste mentality as part of their initiation into Rosicrucian dogma.

Note from Aftermath News:
If Al CIA-da attacks the Knights of Malta, it will be just another staged event to serve as a pretext for more war and more tyranny. However, if some more independent jihadists take this to heart and decide to attack the Knights of Malta anywhere in the world, you will only hurt innocent people. You will not hurt the leadership who will again use your criminal action to justify more bloodshed, more tyranny and more exploitation of your own people. So I ask anyone who is inspired to attack them to stop and think about the bigger picture. Make your attack using words of truth, facts, research and evidence to expose them to justice instead. Violence will accomplish nothing.
http://tinyurl.com/yw95ka

EU and NAFTA: Towards tyranny and the New World Order
December 9, 2007

The North American Union is up and running in all but name, with about as much chance of not being officially ratified as Gordon Brown, or David Miliband, not signing the Lisbon Constitution… sorry, Treaty. This North American counterpart of the European Union was born out of the same mould. It started with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) – the American doppelganger of the Common Market – and, whilst remaining under the legislative radar of the American people, became a new entity controlling transportation, law enforcement, banking, manufacturing, education, construction, military and, not unsurprisingly, immigration between the three former nations at the SPP (Security & Prosperity Partnership) Summit in Banff, Canada in September 2006.

The agreement gives U.S. corporations, amongst other things, the right to break-up and exploit Mexico’s nationalised oil industry, PEMEX, in return for mass immigration of unskilled Mexican workers into the U.S. and its economy. Cheap labour and fat profits all round. Of course, there are losers; American workers find themselves out of work and unable to survive when competing for jobs with people prepared to work for pitifully low wages – a scenario with which many Britons are acquainted – and, in addition, the Mexicans just get exploited. But who cares? Profits are up, costs are down and it’s trebles all round for the fat cats!

The Canadian and Mexican armed forces helped out with the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, and are now available to assist U.S. civil enforcement agencies to deal with domestic disturbances (read as: the anticipated mass demonstrations as the American people begin to realise what’s happened whilst their backs were turned). But we know where they got that idea from, don’t we? Enter Eurogendfor (European Gendarmerie Force) which, according to its own website, was set up to “respond to the need to rapidly conduct all the spectrum of civil security actions, either on its own or in parallel with the military intervention, by providing a multinational and effective tool.” That, in case you don’t know, is EU-speak for crushing anti-EU demonstrations.

It’s no coincidence that these two ‘Unions’ are so similar. And if you wish to know what the common denominator is, then you need look no further than our old friend, the Bilderberg Conference! Once a year these arrogant leaders and business high-flyers, all of whom have undergone democracy bypass surgery, meet up and decide how to ruin ordinary peoples lives in order to line their own pockets even further. And when they have enough control (and they’re just about there) they will play the ace up their sleeve and trigger a global economic collapse. At that point a lot of people will acquiesce to their will in return for scraps of food – but not all. A sizeable majority will rebel against the New World Order (yes, we can mention that now because George Bush and Gordon Brown do). The author of the book of the same name, H.G. Wells, wrote:

“Countless people will hate the New World Order and will die protesting against it.”

He wasn’t wrong (despite being in favour of it). Democracy is ebbing away from us, the people, day by day. To be pro EU is to be pro dictatorship. The LibLabConmen are just that. And if you are a casual visitor to this site, and think that the BNP is the last party you’d vote for, then it probably will be – because you won’t be voting at all in the near future!
http://tinyurl.com/2ew2o3

All Brains Are the Same Color
December 9, 2007
By RICHARD E. NISBETT

JAMES WATSON, the 1962 Nobel laureate, recently asserted that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” and its citizens because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really.”

Dr. Watson’s remarks created a huge stir because they implied that blacks were genetically inferior to whites, and the controversy resulted in his resignation as chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. But was he right? Is there a genetic difference between blacks and whites that condemns blacks in perpetuity to be less intelligent?

The first notable public airing of the scientific question came in a 1969 article in The Harvard Educational Review by Arthur Jensen, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Jensen maintained that a 15-point difference in I.Q. between blacks and whites was mostly due to a genetic difference between the races that could never be erased. But his argument gave a misleading account of the evidence. And others who later made the same argument — Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray in “The Bell Curve,” in 1994, for example, and just recently, William Saletan in a series of articles on Slate — have made the same mistake.

In fact, the evidence heavily favors the view that race differences in I.Q. are environmental in origin, not genetic.

The hereditarians begin with the assertion that 60 percent to 80 percent of variation in I.Q. is genetically determined. However, most estimates of heritability have been based almost exclusively on studies of middle-class groups. For the poor, a group that includes a substantial proportion of minorities, heritability of I.Q. is very low, in the range of 10 percent to 20 percent, according to recent research by Eric Turkheimer at the University of Virginia. This means that for the poor, improvements in environment have great potential to bring about increases in I.Q.

In any case, the degree of heritability of a characteristic tells us nothing about how much the environment can affect it. Even when a trait is highly heritable (think of the height of corn plants), modifiability can also be great (think of the difference growing conditions can make).

Nearly all the evidence suggesting a genetic basis for the I.Q. differential is indirect. There is, for example, the evidence that brain size is correlated with intelligence, and that blacks have smaller brains than whites. But the brain size difference between men and women is substantially greater than that between blacks and whites, yet men and women score the same, on average, on I.Q. tests. Likewise, a group of people in a community in Ecuador have a genetic anomaly that produces extremely small head sizes — and hence brain sizes. Yet their intelligence is as high as that of their unaffected relatives.

Why rely on such misleading and indirect findings when we have much more direct evidence about the basis for the I.Q. gap? About 25 percent of the genes in the American black population are European, meaning that the genes of any individual can range from 100 percent African to mostly European. If European intelligence genes are superior, then blacks who have relatively more European genes ought to have higher I.Q.’s than those who have more African genes. But it turns out that skin color and “negroidness” of features — both measures of the degree of a black person’s European ancestry — are only weakly associated with I.Q. (even though we might well expect a moderately high association due to the social advantages of such features).

During World War II, both black and white American soldiers fathered children with German women. Thus some of these children had 100 percent European heritage and some had substantial African heritage. Tested in later childhood, the German children of the white fathers were found to have an average I.Q. of 97, and those of the black fathers had an average of 96.5, a trivial difference.

If European genes conferred an advantage, we would expect that the smartest blacks would have substantial European heritage. But when a group of investigators sought out the very brightest black children in the Chicago school system and asked them about the race of their parents and grandparents, these children were found to have no greater degree of European ancestry than blacks in the population at large.

Most tellingly, blood-typing tests have been used to assess the degree to which black individuals have European genes. The blood group assays show no association between degree of European heritage and I.Q. Similarly, the blood groups most closely associated with high intellectual performance among blacks are no more European in origin than other blood groups.

The closest thing to direct evidence that the hereditarians have is a study from the 1970s showing that black children who had been adopted by white parents had lower I.Q.’s than those of mixed-race children adopted by white parents. But, as the researchers acknowledged, the study had many flaws; for instance, the black children had been adopted at a substantially later age than the mixed-race children, and later age at adoption is associated with lower I.Q.

A superior adoption study — and one not discussed by the hereditarians — was carried out at Arizona State University by the psychologist Elsie Moore, who looked at black and mixed-race children adopted by middle-class families, either black or white, and found no difference in I.Q. between the black and mixed-race children. Most telling is Dr. Moore’s finding that children adopted by white families had I.Q.’s 13 points higher than those of children adopted by black families. The environments that even middle-class black children grow up in are not as favorable for the development of I.Q. as those of middle-class whites.

Important recent psychological research helps to pinpoint just what factors shape differences in I.Q. scores. Joseph Fagan of Case Western Reserve University and Cynthia Holland of Cuyahoga Community College tested blacks and whites on their knowledge of, and their ability to learn and reason with, words and concepts. The whites had substantially more knowledge of the various words and concepts, but when participants were tested on their ability to learn new words, either from dictionary definitions or by learning their meaning in context, the blacks did just as well as the whites.

Whites showed better comprehension of sayings, better ability to recognize similarities and better facility with analogies — when solutions required knowledge of words and concepts that were more likely to be known to whites than to blacks. But when these kinds of reasoning were tested with words and concepts known equally well to blacks and whites, there were no differences. Within each race, prior knowledge predicted learning and reasoning, but between the races it was prior knowledge only that differed.

What do we know about the effects of environment?

That environment can markedly influence I.Q. is demonstrated by the so-called Flynn Effect. James Flynn, a philosopher and I.Q. researcher in New Zealand, has established that in the Western world as a whole, I.Q. increased markedly from 1947 to 2002. In the United States alone, it went up by 18 points. Our genes could not have changed enough over such a brief period to account for the shift; it must have been the result of powerful social factors. And if such factors could produce changes over time for the population as a whole, they could also produce big differences between subpopulations at any given time.

In fact, we know that the I.Q. difference between black and white 12-year-olds has dropped to 9.5 points from 15 points in the last 30 years — a period that was more favorable for blacks in many ways than the preceding era. Black progress on the National Assessment of Educational Progress shows equivalent gains. Reading and math improvement has been modest for whites but substantial for blacks.

Most important, we know that interventions at every age from infancy to college can reduce racial gaps in both I.Q. and academic achievement, sometimes by substantial amounts in surprisingly little time. This mutability is further evidence that the I.Q. difference has environmental, not genetic, causes. And it should encourage us, as a society, to see that all children receive ample opportunity to develop their minds.

Richard E. Nisbett, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, is the author of “The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently and Why.”
http://tinyurl.com/ywawq8